An article about ‘peak meat’ ran in The Atlantic and Quartz today, adding yet another peak to the mounting list of constrained and over-consumed resources on the planet:

Besides the health risks of eating too much red meat, i.e. heart disease, there is the environmental impact affecting everyone, meat-eaters and vegans alike. In the last couple years there have been increasing calls for the developed countries to dramatically cut their meat consumption by 50% to reduce greenhouse gases from industrial meat production. The fertilizers used to grow the feed crops for cattle “produce the most potent of the greenhouse gases.”

Retail sales of meat and poultry have risen in the U.S. in recent years, but the actual volume sold has been decreasing. The increased sales totals have been a result of increased prices due to higher production input costs. Look at the graph below and you’ll see that farmed fish have overtaken beef production. Part of this may be due perhaps to a more health-conscience public, but I believe the primary reason is because of increased production costs which are ultimately from increased energy costs or constraints of peak net energy:

As grain and soybean prices have risen well above historical levels in recent years, the cost of producing grain-eating livestock has also gone up. Higher prices have nudged consumers away from the least-efficient feeders. This means more farmed fish and less beef. In the United States, where the amount of meat in peoples’ diets has been falling since 2004, average consumption of beef per person has dropped by more than 13 percent and that of chicken by 5 percent. U.S. fish consumption has also dropped, but just by 2 percent…

…Cattle consume 7 pounds of grain or more to produce an additional pound of beef. This is twice as high as the grain rations for pigs, and over three times those of poultry. Fish are far more efficient, typically taking less than 2 pounds of feed to add another pound of weight. Pork and poultry are the most widely eaten forms of animal protein worldwide, but farmed fish output is increasing the fastest. – source

In the next graph we see that while farm fishing is on the rise, wild caught fish have been on the decline due to overfishing, destruction of ocean ecosystems, and what has been called peak fish.

So the world is replacing beef and wild-caught fish with farmed fish or aquaculture. But just as cattle farming and the overharvesting of the oceans for 7 billion people create their own far-reaching environmental impacts, so too does farmed fish:

As cattle ranches have displaced biologically rich rainforests, fish farms have displaced mangrove forests that provide important fish nursery habitats and protect coasts during storms. Worldwide, aquaculture is thought to be responsible for more than half of all mangrove loss, mostly for shrimp farming. In the Philippines, some two thirds of the country’s mangroves—over 100,000 hectares—have been removed for shrimp farming over the last 40 years. …Another problem with intensive confined animal feeding operations of all kinds, whether for farmed fish or for cattle, is not what gets extracted from the environment but what gets put in it. …Along with the vast quantities of waste, the antibiotic and parasite-killing chemicals used to deal with the unwanted disease and infestations that can spread easily in crowded conditions also can end up in surrounding ecosystems. The overuse of antibiotics in livestock operations can lead to antibiotic-resistant bacteria, threatening both human and animal health. In the United States, for instance, 80 percent of antibiotics use is in agriculture—and often not for treating sick animals but for promoting rapid weight gain. – source

On his website Peak Food, John Gossop lists the reasons why we are headed for a global famine in 2025:

In response to the increasing demand for food, wealthy countries have gone overseas on a land grab to secure soil and water resources:

…in the past 10 years, up to 227 million hectares of land were sold in developing and emerging countries, or signed away as long-term leases. The total area is roughly six times the size of Germany. In the past two years, compe­tition has intensified further, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. According to Oxfam, more than 60 % of the land deals concern countries that suffer poverty and hunger. This is considered worrisome since international investors are basically interested in exporting commodities to richer economies. – source

Peak food production seems to have been reached due to the water-energy-food nexus, according to Marita Wiggerthale, trade and food expert for Oxfam Germany:

Peak food production has already been reached because there is increased competition between food, fuel and feed,” Wiggerthale said, pointing to biofuel production that diverts 15 percent of the world’s corn to engines and the world’s growing appetite for meat, which pushes farmers to grow food for animal feed at the expense of other food crops. – source

I’m not sure what new crops will survive in a climate pattern of extreme drought, floods, and fluctuating temperatures, but some think we can GMO are way out of this mess.

“Beekeeper Industry is Doomed and Cannot Survive for another 2 to 3 Years…”

And to add to the threat of the world’s food supply, a mass die-off of the bees is underway, probably from the nemesis effect of our pesticide and chemical-saturated environment. Don’t these news reporters look a little too relaxed reporting this horrific story in the video below?

Sacramento California is now witnessing first hand, the daunting implications of colony collapse disorder. It is estimated that California produces about 80 percent of the world’s almonds. There are 6,000 almond orchards in that region and many of the farmers are finding that there simply aren’t enough bees to pollinate their crop. A fourth generation beekeeper lost 70% of his hives while another lost 100%.

The negative effects of the honeybee shortage were predicted last year so measures were taken to try and offset this dangerous scenario. 11,000 hives were brought to California from all over the country; of these 11,000 hives, hundreds were found dead upon arrival. There are an abundance of theorized causes of colony collapse disorder, from disease, to mites, to pesticides. In a recent U.C. Davis study, in which a large sample of hives was examined, 150 different chemical residues were found on the bees.

The effects of honeybee loss are near cataclysmic as it is estimated that one third of the entire world’s food supply comes from pollination. Pesticides are a key suspect in the hunt for the culprit and fortunately there is something that we can all do to counter their use. We can buy organic, buy local, and grow our own food. Practicing self-sustainability and support for local sustainable farmers is a key factor in staving off the potential for worldwide food shortages… – source

As the bees go, so goes humanity.

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About xraymike79

I'm a social critic, political/cultural commentator and artist. The modern industrial world is on the cusp of great changes to our current unsustainable way of life. Most people are oblivious to the paradigm shift that will occur, but some are starting to awaken to the fact that the future will not resemble the halcyon days of the last half century in America as evidenced by the OWS movement. My objective is to highlight important news stories and find the truth that is hidden behind what Joe Bageant called the American Hologram.
www.collapseofindustrialcivilization.com

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24 thoughts on “‘Peak Meat’ and Other Threats to the World’s Food Supply”

I moved to Sacramento in 2000 and became climate change aware after reading an article on disappearing ice at the North Pole. In 2003 attended a presentation by UC Davis to Sacramento movers and shakers on forecasted climate change impacts on California. As I recall, the best case scenarios were still very bad, hi temps, low snowpack, yet increased risk of flooding. Also, Sacramento was (and I believe still remains) #2 at risk of major flooding in the US (after New Orleans). Anyway, my wife and I looked at all sorts of options, buying land, intentional communities, etc. By summer 2006 we decided to bail for Oregon, best move we ever made, bought 1/2 acre lot in Eugene. So now we live in a state that has the same population as the metro Sacramento area, 3 million, and we have a healthy bee colony cross our fingers.

Not to mention that what you CAN buy in the stores is not exactly the best quality option…….. know your farmer! We grow our own chicken meat, and bil does the beef and pork…… in between if we need there is an organic farmer we actually KNOW the quality of the product. Not everyone has access i understand that but truly…. people need to make sourcing real food a high priority – the idea of food security seems to be lost on the general population and it is one way or another going to become important again.

The weather has been so unusual over the past few years that the Met Office is concerned that the repercussions of climate change may already be upon us.

The forecaster is concerned by a sequence of increasingly strange weather in the UK, which includes the coldest spring in 50 years this year, the wettest summer in a century last year, as well as droughts and the prolonged winter.

It has called an unprecedented meeting of experts to discuss Britain and Europe’s increasingly unpredictable weather patterns in a bid to determine if the they represent a fundamental shift as a result of climate change or simply come down to variable weather.

Climate scientists and meterologists will travel to the Met Office’s headquarters in Exeter on Tuesday for the summit, which will be chaired by Stephen Belcher, Head of the Met Office Hadley Centre.

Mr Belcher said: “We have seen a run of unusual seasons in the UK and Northern Europe, such as the cold winter of 2010, last year’s wet weather and the cold spring this year.

“This may be nothing more than a run of natural variability, but there may be other factors impacting our weather. For example, there is emerging research which suggests there is a link between declining Arctic sea ice and European climate – but exactly how this process might work, and how important it may be among a host of other factors, remains unclear.“The Met Office is running a workshop to bring together climate experts from across the UK to look at these unusual seasons, the possible causes behind them, and how we can learn more about those drivers of our weather.”

The meeting comes after the National Farmers’ Union reported that wheat harvests are likely to be around 30% lower than last year as a result of the extreme weather over winter, making it the second below-average harvest in as many years.

Beekeepers have also reported that a third of honeybee colonies failed to survive the winter following last year’s wash-out summer and continuing bad weather into 2013, exacerbated by the late arrival of spring.

“…More than a third of all honeybee colonies in England died over the winter, according to figures from the British Beekeepers Association, the worst losses since its winter survival survey began.

On average, 33.8 colonies in every 100 perished over the long winter of 2012-13 compared with 16.2% the previous winter. In the south-west of England, more than half of all colonies were wiped out and in the northern part of the country 46.4% didn’t survive.

In Scotland and Wales, honeybees fared no better. The Scottish beekeepers association, which has yet to complete its annual survey, predicts losses of up to 50%. And bee farmers in Wales have reported 38% losses.

The BBKA attributed the alarming high bee mortality to the poor weather during 2012 continuing into 2013 and exacerbated by the late arrival of spring.

“The wet summer prevented honey bees from foraging for food, resulting in poorly developed colonies going into winter. When they could get out there was a scarcity of pollen and nectar. Honeybee colonies which are in a poor nutritional state become more vulnerable to disease and other stress factors,” said a BBKA spokeswoman.

Many beekeepers also reported incidence of “isolation starvation”, when the cluster of bees in the hive becomes too cold to move close enough to eat their food stores in another part of the hive, and so starve.

But there are fears that the death toll for bees in England could be even higher, since the BBKA survey of 846 members closed at the end of March before the arrival of spring.

“April this year was very cold, and the start of May, so bees were confined to the hive for much longer and we still had bees dying from starvation in May. So losses could be much more serious,” said Glyn Davies, a beekeeper from Devon and former president of the BBKA.

He said the south-west was particularly badly hit because of the relentless rain. “It was the wet, wet, wet, wet summer followed by an enormously long winter. I’ve never seen anything like it in the 35 years I’ve been keeping bees,” said the 74-year-old beekeeper.

The winter bee losses come just weeks after EU member states voted for a suspension of three pesticides alleged to cause serious harm to bees.

Francis Ratnieks, professor of apiculture at University of Sussex, said pesticides weren’t the cause of the high bee mortality: “It was the worst summer ever. I had my own bees starving to death in the summer. It is nothing to do with pesticides; bad weather is enough of an explanation. It’s not healthy for bees to be trapped in their hives during the summer. Some queen bees couldn’t get out to mate and confined bees are more likely to get nosema [a gut parasite] and viruses from the varroa mite…”

My wife keeps bees. Three hives. Lost two last year. We live in what should be a great place for bees.
Other countries are banning several suspected pesticides. Not Uncle Sam. The US is the worst. Third world countries, desperately poor, are doing better than us in protecting the environment.

Bee-killing pesticide companies are pretending to save bees
By John Upton

Even as bees drop dead around the world after sucking down pesticide-laced nectar, pesticide makers are touting their investments in bee research.

Nearly a third of commercial honeybee colonies in U.S. were wiped out last year, for a complicated array of reasons, scientists say: disease, stress, poor nutrition, mite infestations, and — yes — pesticides. Neonicotinoid pesticides seem to be particularly damaging to bees, so much so that the European Union is moving to ban them (but the U.S. is not).

Now the two main manufacturers of neonicotinoids, Bayer CropScience and Syngenta, are promoting their commitments to bee health, as is agro-giant Monsanto. From a feature story in the St. Louis Post Dispatch:

Monsanto Co., which two years ago bought an Israeli bee research company, hosts an industry conference on bee health at its headquarters in Creve Coeur this month. Bayer CropScience is building a 5,500-square-foot “bee health center” in North Carolina, and with fellow chemical giant, Syngenta, has developed a “comprehensive action plan” for bee health.

“The beekeeping industry has always crawled on its hands and knees to USDA and universities, begging for help,” said Jerry Hayes, a bee industry veteran recently hired by Monsanto to run its bee research efforts. “Now we have this very large company involved that knows how important bees are to agriculture.”

With a very large company involved, the bees are as good as saved, right?

Not surprisingly, the industry is downplaying the role of insecticides in bee deaths.

For example, Iain Kelly of Bayer CropScience does a suspiciously incomplete job of explaining the scary plight of bees during an interview with North Carolina Public Radio about the company’s new bee research center:

Kelly … says other insects and diseases are invading much of the bee’s natural habitat.

“They have real problems now with pests and pathogens, including viruses and fungal diseases,” Kelly says.

“We’ve lost a lot of the natural foliage for them as well, which is a big concern to beekeepers.”

Yeah, we know, this is a multi-faceted problem. But what about the pesticides? More on that from the Post-Dispatch:

Published last year, a study by Purdue University found that dead bees that had foraged in and around corn fields contained high levels of neonicotinoid compounds. The study was prompted by massive bee die-offs that happened in the spring, when corn planters were spewing neonicotinoid-containing dust.

“I know, definitively, that there’s a relationship between treated seed and spring die-offs,” said Christian Krupke, the study’s lead author. “It (neonicotinoids) blows out behind the planter and gets in the air, it lands on dandelions. It lands on the bees, even.”

While Krupke says there’s no direct link between neonicotinoids and Colony Collapse Disorder, he said, “anything that’s a stressor to bees is a concern now. We know they’re weaker because of it.”

The industry, however, flatly denies any link between bee health and the neonicotinoids it produces.

“Vanishing of the Bees” (2009), fabulous documentary on bees and the mass vanishing. Note the segment beginning at 32:00 on commercialized beekeeping “practices like taking honey away from the bees and filling hives with sugar syrup.”

44% of US still impacted by drought… Meanwhile, we have floods on the Mississippi one year after record low water levels. With La Nina inching back in the Pacific, we’re at risk of seeing the ‘flood’ phase in the mid-west switch back to ‘drought.’

The answer to the bee problem is ‘obvious’. Under disaster capitalism, companies that are complicit in the destruction of bee (and everything else) carry out research and come up with a product that will reduce the impact of the toxins bees ingest, and then sell that [patented] product to bee keepers, thereby increasing profits and increasing control of the market.

Another ‘obvious’ answer is to develop genetically modified bees that are resistant to insecticides and do not need a balanced diet of pollen and nectar to survive.

Corporate science fiction aside, the way things are looking in the Northern Hemisphere suggests that colony collapse may soon commence for human colonies. .

And the large cities in the Southern Hemisphere are looking none too well.

I have never kept bees but I’m in the process of making a TOP BAR hive, which one beekeeper I know believes is a better design than the standard box. There is a fair amount of intricate woodwork involved, and suitable untreated timber is hard to come by, so I started from scratch with rough-sawn boards. A progress report in a few months, maybe.

As things stand (here in semi-rural NZ) I rarely see honey bees, and most pollination seems do be done by butterflies and bumblebees. I saw recently that Britain is attempting to re-establish bumblebees imported from Sweden, having wiped out several varieties over recent decades. Hmmm? The conditions that led to the wipe-out have not been addressed, and indeed appear to be worse than ever.

How’s this for disaster capitalism?!? They just find $hit substitutes for honey:

“In a shocking new study, seventy-six percent of the sticky, golden stuff sold as honey in the US isn’t actually honey, according to the FDA. Over three-fourths of honey recently tested in supermarkets contained zero traces of pollen, and is often diluted with high-fructose corn syrup.

In fact, only a small handful of local or organic chains passed the test. Even supermarket honey labeled “organic” only had a 71% chance of actually being honey. This is sick, cynical, and dangerous. Major grocery stores are packing their shelves with “honey” without bothering to ensure that they’re selling us the real thing. If 150,000 of us sign this petition, we’ll deliver it to the top grocery chains and force them to stop ignoring this issue…”

Why would they treat honey any differently than they treat rice, wheat, beef, chicken, apples, etc.?
It is all fake crap. As long as people don’t instantly die, all is well.
We sell honey. It is expensive to produce. We don’t produce it to make a lot of money, but we don’t want to lose money on every pint.
Good food costs money. We are entering a time when we are truly ingesting poison, thinking it is food.
As long as investors in ADM, Cargill, Monsanto, etc, are happy, what the heck are we bitching about?

In an open-air prison, the wage slaves, i.e. consumers, have neither the time nor energy to fight their corporate overlords. Living in extremis affords little opportunity to address such injustices, much less think deeply about them, especially when the digital propaganda hologram is all-encompassing and running 24/7.

I thought this was pretty well written, but I do not think you should condemn aquaculture based on the shoddy environmental practices in a few Asian countries. If you are correct– and a global famine is coming—we need nutritious protein sources to stay alive. As you pointed out– aquaculture may actually be the best path to take in the U.S. –where we have sufficient government regulation over environmental impacts. The real problem (as you also pointed out) is our foreign trade policies which inadvertently support poor animal husbandry in other countries as the expense of their environment. Those countries that have destroyed their ecosystems are selling those shrimp (and many other species of seafood) to the U.S. Support U.S. farmers every chance you get. While the U.S. still has room for improvement– buying locally produced food of any kind supports sustainability. We need to make “grown in the U.S.” a brand that is prized around the world.

For many people around the world the term ‘grown in the US’ is synonymous with “Frankenfood’, genetically modified crops grown unsustainably using huge inputs of ancient water drawn form rapidly-depleting aquifers and huge inputs of energy derived from rapidly depleting fossil fuels, along with huge doses of chemicals also derived from oil.

I’m sure that are some crops that are not in the above category, but how is anyone to tell?

You say: ‘in the U.S. –where we have sufficient government regulation over environmental impacts.’ yet from what we read and see, the US government has been taken over by industrial and banking corporations that have installed their ‘Yes-men’ into positions of power to ensure there are no environmental boundaries to looting and polluting.
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But bees DO pollinate a bunch of shit that you probably like to eat. Need a visual? Check out these before and after pics from Whole Foods that illustrate the amount of produce that would vanish if all the bees died off:

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OWS knows who really pulls the strings

"...the megawealthy and Washington have become so symbiotic as to be a single entity. Indeed, Occupy's best move, as conservative blogger/financier Gregory Djerejian noted at TheAtlantic.com, was "directing their ire squarely toward the real elites of the country, rather than their bought-and-paid marionettes sitting in Washington."

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